It’s about 3 1/2 years old, a 4/4 (full sized), in great condition, and comes with everything one might need to feel like a somebody (bow, good strings, fancy rosin, hard case, soft case). I’ll even throw in a music stand and a digital tuner. If you, or anyone you know, are interested in buying something classy, let me know and we’ll work something out. If no one I know wants to buy it, it’s going on ebay.

It wasn’t recording properly for the first ten minutes, so it’s missing the intro and first news segment (no one will miss this). So that’s why it starts in the middle of a song. I think it’s an improvement from last time, but it’s still a work in progress.

I can’t remember the last time I’ve felt happy like this, and that’s “happy” in the purest sense of the word. Free of material causes and selfish gains. It’s a gift of a feeling, sent to remind me that I can blast music and dance around my house like an idiot, because there’s no one to stop me and all the people in the world to tell me to just go for it.

What you’re hearing at the beginning and end is the station’s filler music. And the first five minutes of dead air was a result of me turning my mic on, then trying to figure out if I had turned my mic on, and then frantically running around the station, looking for an escape. It was not my proudest moment.

I remember several things very clearly about my first day of eighth grade. I rode the bus to school for the first time that day. It was the first time I got to walk up the stairs of the “new” Irma Lerma Rangel Young Women’s Leadership School at Daniel “Chappy” James Learning (inhale) Center. At the top of those stairs stood Mr. Raniere, an image that would become my last, unclouded memory of him. But most of all I remember the list.

It was a list of goals that I was asked to write during history class. And it went something like this:

1. Finish college by age 21

2. Complete my first film (feature, short, documentary, animation, anything) by age 23

3. Have a well-paying film “career” by age 24

4. Marry by age 25

5. Have kids by age 28

6. Go with the flow

Oh, how things have changed.

What do I want right now? For starters, none of the above (except maybe a less stringent version of #2). But what do I want, now that I’ve had a few more years to think about it?

Well, I’d like a home like this someday:

Nothing too flashy. As long as it has floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, I’d be in heaven.

And I’d also like one of these:

I’d name him Piggy Wig, every night I’d read him a booky wook, and he’ll grow up to be a fine Droogy woog.

I keep a dream journal, the absolute lamest kind of journal a person can keep. Worse than a diary and way WAY worse than a sketchbook or idea journal. It serves absolutely no purpose, other than making me feel like a loser. I actually forgot all about the journal until I found it this morning.

Flip

First page. Okay, nothing too crazy. In this dream, I stay after school to watch a movie (because the school has a built-in theater in my dreams) and then I’m…chased by a vampire?

Flip

Flip

In this dream, class rankings are announced and I’m at the top. God, even my dreams are nerdy.

Flip

“I have a mentor meeting at 12:00. It’s 4:30 and I’m still not ready.” (I wonder why “dream me” didn’t realize the meeting had probably ended?) “And I have a maid.” (She seemed really nice.)

Flip

“A section of wire on my braces snap off and my teeth start moving around.” Not going to lie, this one freaked me out.

Flip

Underwater.

Flip

Flip

Duck Camp is actually a summer-long Ernie Goes to Camp-type ordeal? Good grief. “I end up ditching the group and then found some candy.” (Redemption!)